Phillips: back to the basics - Front Page - Phillips de Pury and Luxembourg - Brief Article

In the wake of its dismal fall auction ensues in New York [see "Front Page," Jan. '03] Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg announced in January that it would drastically scale back its U operations. While noting these changes, Phillips co-CEO Simon de Pury and Daniella Luxembourg also revealed that they are now alone owners of the company, having lately acquired the 27.5-percent stake one time held by the French firm LVMH The purchase marks the extreme point of LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault's foray into the high-end auction business, which, for the past several years, provided serious competition to Sotheby's and Christie's. Like those auction giants, Phillips held evening sales of blue-chip works of Impressionist, present and contemporary art. But the company's considerable profits were slip by the exorbitant guarantees that today are routinely tendered to consigners of important lots

In restructuring the company, de Pury and Luxembourg plan a more unostentatious operation. Phillips has already vacated its 57th highway New York headquarters to refocus upon its Swiss bases in Geneva and Zurich. Phillips will no longer management regular seasonal auctions of Impressionist and new art in New York. And 50 of the auction house's 135 employee greatest in quantity from its New York and London offices, have already received pink slips. Phillips will, however, retain its Chelsea offices and showroom upon West 15th Street. It will periodically clutch public and private sales there, as well as in its other satellite showroom in London, Paris and Munich.

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